Clean Energy Action Newsletter December 2019

Happy 2020!!! This month we have an invitation to a climate talk with the mayor of Boulder, a PUC update, stories we are reading, and more!

A Conversation with the Mayor of Boulder

on Climate and Clean Energy

When: Saturday Jan. 25, 9 AM - Noon

Where: West Boulder Senior Center, 909 Arapahoe, Boulder, CO 80302

M ark your calendars! CEA is sponsoring a climate talk in Boulder with Mayor Sam Wea ver. The agenda will include:

• An introduction from the Mayor

• An update on State Legislation

• Discussion of Just Transition issues

• Discussion of Community Choice Energy

• Discussion of Microgrids

• Discussion of Fracking in Boulder County

• Break out groups and plans for the future on these issues

This is a free event, but please register HERE

Tri State to Close Colorado and New Mexico Coal Plants By 2030

After over a decade of work by Clean Energy Action and many others groups and individuals, on Thursday January 9, 2020, Tri State Generation and Transmission (TSGT), which serves rural coops throughout Colorado as well as in New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska, announced t hat it will close its Escalante coal plant in New Mexico by the end of 2020 and the Craig coal plants and the Colowyo coal mine in Colorado by 2030. There is a lot of work left to be done to help the rural coops in Colorado and elsewhere clean up and decentralize their power supply, but this announcement by Tri State is a very important step forward. Clean Energy Action salutes the hard work of many rural clean energy activists who have fought so hard to make this progress.

Attorney Susan Perkins Appointed to PUC

Clean Energy Action was pleased to hear that attorney and clean energy advocate Susan Perkins was nominated by Governor Polis to serve on the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC), starting in January 2020. Susan has several decades of experience in the energy industry and has devoted the last 15 years to clean energy legal and advocacy work. She will join PUC Chairman Jeff Ackermann and Commissioner John Gavan as the PUC faces a host of proceedings that will help rewrite the rules driving clean energy investments and governing investor-owned electric utilities like Xcel and Black Hills in Colorado. Clean Energy Action also wants to thank Commissioner Frances Koncilja for her dedicated and intelligent service on the Commission. She will be missed.

[Full disclosure, Susan Perkins served on the CEA Board for several years prior to 2012.]

PUC Proceedings

Throughout 2020, the Colorado PUC will be addressing numerous proceedings that will rewrite the rules for electricity service by investor owned utilities like Xcel and Black Hills. Moving forward, Clean Energy Action will highlight some of the key issues from those proceedings.

Real Time Rates v Time of Use Rates (Proceeding 19AL-0687E)

In late December 2019, Xcel applied to the Colorado PUC to establish mandatory “Time-Of-Use” or “TOU” rates for residential customers. Xcel’s proposed rates would be highest (over 17 cents/kwh) from 3-7 pm on summer weekdays, lower, but still high (about 13 cents/kwh) from 11-3 and 7-10 pm on summer weekdays and about 8.8 cents/kwh the rest of the year.

While TOU rates may have made sense in previous decades with a fossil-fuel-dominated electrical system, as increasing amounts of wind and solar are added to the system, it appears that the PUC should give strong consideration to “Real-Time” rates that allow electricity use to shift to periods when wind and solar are producing low-carbon electricity. Stay tuned as we learn more about this proceeding.

What We Are Reading

Read how a Community Choice Energy bill in the state house may affect the Boulder municipalization effort, and pro and anti muni reactions, HERE

Read about Modular Microgrids, and how they can make Microgrids more affordable, HERE

Meet our Executive Director, Conor J. May

Conor joined the CEA team in January of 2017, and has run our operations for the last three years. While he has always been passionate about environmental policy, his work at CEA helped to cultivate and sharpen that passion. This led him to enroll in the University of Colorado Law School in 2018, where he is currently pursuing a law degree focusing on environmental, economic, and technology policy. Conor moved from Durango to Boulder in 2010, and received his undergraduate degree from CU in history and political science. Prior to attending law school, he worked as an administrative assistant at the Boulder Public Defenders Office.

In addition to his role at CEA, Conor is a member of the Colorado Journal of Law & Technology, works with several student organizations including the Environmental Law Society, and volunteers with the Boulder-based citizen group Empower Our Future.

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